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21st December 2001 -
10.15 GMT
February 2001
Ros has a health problem in her family and
is forced to travel to Brazil.
April 2001
We decide to have our holidays in Brazil,
so we can save some cash because of the air tickets.
General Impressions about Brazil
We stayed a week our so in Ros' hometown,
Campinas, 100 km from São Paulo. Campinas is... well,
a city with +/- 1 million inhabitants. Nothing more and nothing
less.
There are some parks, a downtown, some shopping
malls and a lot of suburbs.
There are several things, I don't like about
Brazil. The most obvious is crime and violence. Everybody
you meet can tell you some horrifying stories. "Friend killed
for a pair of shoes", "car stolen in front of the house while
parking", "shop assaulted in plain day light" and so on and
so on. I got paranoid and it might saved my ass in several
occasions. But for sure it inhibited us to do a lot of fun
stuff.
Days in Brazil are short. Days begin at 6
a.m. and finish at 6.p.m (of course it depends on your geographical
position). So if you are used to the long summer days , hanging
around until 9 or 10 in the daylight, you might be pretty
disappointed.
So, after 6 p.m. our days are basically over,
because we don't dare to leave the house after darkness.
The good things about Brazil are open minded
people (besides the criminals) and the cheap food.
Not, that living is cheap. No, big supermarkets
are on european standards, choice and price wise.
But eating out is cool !
You pay for the kilo or as much as you want.
Ok, so let's get on the road ! We borrowed
an old Chevy something - like an Opel Corsa - and went to
the north, heading direction of Rio and the highway. Quiet
interesting, how the gas price may vary from one gas station
to the other. Around early afternoon we reached a place called
..., know for his waterfalls in the wet season. The car showed
some overheating problems and the next way we found out, that
some rubber tubs of the cooling circuit were leaking.
50 m from the hotel was a workshop and we
got it fixed quiet easily.
Next point of interest was the National park
" Parque Nacional da Serra do Caparaó" Pico de Bandeiras
26-28-4: Pico de Bandeira
- I
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